Last but not least: Going to Washington
Almost a thousand years ago, Henry IV crossed the Alps at the risk of his own life on his supplication to Canossa. Last week, the CEOs of the "Big Three" - Chrysler, Ford and General Motors - drove from Detroit to Washington in a small car on their begging tour for state aid. A successful new take on an old theme.
The walk to Canossa has been revived. However, unlike Emperor Henry IV, who was struck by the papal ray of excommunication and who in 1077, barefoot and wearing a busman's shirt, pranced around in front of the Pope's castle in the hope of being rehabilitated, the protagonists of the recently publicized supplication were traveling by car. We are talking about Robert Nardelli, Alan Mulally and Richard Wagoner, the CEOs of the "Big Three" of the American car industry: Chrysler, Ford and General Motors. They traveled from Detroit to Washington to ask Congress for a total of 34 billion dollars for their companies. Without the taxpayers' money, the three car manufacturers, on which around three million livelihoods depend in the USA alone, would not survive the financial crisis.
However, the idea of traveling by car last week only occurred to the CEOs when they had to travel to the second hearing. At the first one two weeks ago, they took the company's private jet, a small luxury that cost the bankrupt company around 20,000 dollars. A first-class flight would have cost 800 dollars. That was not the case with the not exactly well received by the American presswhereupon the three CEOs for the next trip not only took the carbut also cut all their bonuses and reduced their annual salaries to one dollar (whereupon the Wall Street Journal immediately asked itself, what you can buy with one dollar). The demonstrative modesty of the three top managers even went so far as to show up in small cars, drive without a chauffeur, eat in snack bars and use public toilets. The symbolic actions are unlikely to fail to have an effect, The message certainly got through to the Senate. Henry IV has found worthy imitators.
However, the idea of traveling by car last week only occurred to the CEOs when they had to travel to the second hearing. At the first one two weeks ago, they took the company's private jet, a small luxury that cost the bankrupt company around 20,000 dollars. A first-class flight would have cost 800 dollars. That was not the case with the not exactly well received by the American presswhereupon the three CEOs for the next trip not only took the carbut also cut all their bonuses and reduced their annual salaries to one dollar (whereupon the Wall Street Journal immediately asked itself, what you can buy with one dollar). The demonstrative modesty of the three top managers even went so far as to show up in small cars, drive without a chauffeur, eat in snack bars and use public toilets. The symbolic actions are unlikely to fail to have an effect, The message certainly got through to the Senate. Henry IV has found worthy imitators.
